I’m Beth Mumme. I’m thoroughly enjoying getting to know each of you and your beautiful families. Thanks again, Aubri, for getting this site started!
I married Mark 20 years ago this summer and am currently a stay-at-home mom to our four children, Melinda (17), Cora (15), Emma (12), and William (10). This is our 11th year in the small farming town of Hardwick, MN in the SW corner of Minnesota, where Mark still serves his first and only call to Zion. We love country living since both of us grew up on farms – he in Southern MN and I in Northern IL. I’m in my 12th year of homeschooling, with the younger two at home and the older girls now in public high school.
Mark and I first met at Concordia, River Forest, but I graduated with a BS in Nursing from St. Francis in Peoria, IL. We started our lives together in Bloomington, IL, where Mark worked as a computer analyst for 7 years, and I as an RN at a hospital and nursing home for 2 years before becoming a stay-at-home mom. When we moved to Fort Wayne in 1996 we left much behind, but were also blessed to spend one year at the seminary with each of Mark’s brothers – Paul and David – both pastors and married to homeschooling wives. It was during those years at the seminary that my understanding of confessional Lutheran doctrine and appreciation for confessional Lutheran practice first took root (I grew up ALC). We arrived at the Fort with two children and left with four, eager to unpack and make Hardwick our “home”.
Things I love include:Playing the piano (time slips by unnoticed when I have the opportunity)
Playing the violin (just started taking lessons last fall)
Cooking/baking (especially new recipes with Penzeys Spices)
Gardening (canning & freezing all summer long)
Singing (at church... and around home, when some word/phrase brings an old song to mind - which embarrasses the kids to no end!)
Reading (curled up in a cozy chair with my heating blanket... ahhh!)
Tent camping, walking our lab, & campfires in the backyard)
A mug of black coffee by day (and an occasional dark frothy beer by night)
Things I dream of doing someday (in no particular order):Start a perennial flower bed (I see some beautiful flowers on some of your intros)
Learn to play the organ with foot pedals (I play occasionally for services)
Learn to swim (go snorkeling some day)
Learn to shoot shotgun (then I could hunt WITH my hubby and son... instead of just cleaning what they bring home)
Learn to fish (other than using a bamboo pole for suckers in a backyard creek)
Master our camera (the digital one with all those buttons)
Catch up on scrapbooking (this is a daunting task for me! I am SO unorganized...I don't even know where to begin)
Master the stick shift (so Mark will let me drive the '51 Ford pickup we're restoring)
And finally, some words to consider for our vocations as wife and mother: “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” (Teddy Roosevelt).
Welcome Beth! I laughed about your singing being prompted by words or phrases you hear. My grandmother used to do that and we'd laugh about it....now my mom and I do the SAME THING! Ha ha on us! Oh well, at least our homes are full of song right?!
ReplyDeleteLoved the singing, too! Grew up in a home full of music. Mom always had the radio on or something on the turn table (remember those??). And now I do the same although it's something in the CD player. I just can't imagine a day without music of some kind.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of song embarassing the kids, here's a normal practice in our household: when one of the boys is complaining over not getting what he wants/wanted Jon and I break into the old Rolling STones hit, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and it embarrasses the heck out of the boys! LOVE IT! But they get the message all too quickly. Can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find...you get what you need.
Love you girls!
GREAT, Beth! Pics, background, fam, lists, everything!
ReplyDeleteThanks, gals! I'm thinkin my girls will some day follow suit with the singing, too, Aubri. How fun that you use the Rolling Stones song to teach your boys a thing or two, Jenny!
ReplyDeleteAfter watching a movie with the kids last week, I found myself singing along as the credits rolled by. The song was Let It Be Me which I hadn't heard since I was probably in middle school. My older sister had a Donnie and Marie Osmond record that we loved to listen to and this was one of our favorites that they sang together. Boy, did I get the looks from the kids! I guess I'm gettin old. :)